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Show CHARNEL HOUSE NEAR WARSAW Petrograd. via Venice and London. Dec. 4. 10:35 p. m The following official of-ficial communication was issued tonight to-night "In the Carpathians, in We9t Gali-cla Gali-cla and in South Poland, quiet prevailed prevail-ed generally yesterday. 'The fighting in North Poiand continues." con-tinues." Petrograd, Dec. 4. Some surprise has been caused here by the announcement announce-ment of the general staff that com parative tranquility has set in on all fronts where Russian troops are engaged. en-gaged. It was believed that the great battle of western Poland would be fought to a definite issue without pause or relaxation. There is no reason to suppose that this period of diminished intensity will be of long duration. Any moment mo-ment we may hear that operations have been resumed with fresh vigor and this time they will not be likely to calm down until one side or the other has given way. As to which side that will be, no doubt exists here Russians Capture Guns. Unofficial indications that the Germans Ger-mans suffered very heavily continue A message from Lodz states that ten cannon ana seemy-nvo Lum:mue gunt taken from the enemy have been brought to that town. The zone whence the Germans succeeded suc-ceeded in escaping from the crossfire of the Russian enveloping troops ie a perfect charnel house. All who have visited that vast battlefield unite in describing the carnage as horrible. The trenches are choked with layers of German corpses. At one village In three successive charges the Siberian Sibe-rian riflemen mowed down the German Ger-man ranks like wheaL The views of the best military critics crit-ics differ considerably as to the meaning mean-ing of the curious development of the battle of Lodz. Some believe that the Germans are now merely making tremendous efforts to extricate a portion por-tion of their army from a position of deadly peril and that tho object of the masses of reinforcements which they are bringing up is to cover the retreat of the shaken and exhausted corps on which the brunt of the protracted pro-tracted conflict has fallen. In the opinion of othors, the enemy is still bent on the aggressive and hopes by persistent efforts to effect a breach in the Russian line oo |